Since the September 11, 2001, terroristattacks on the United States, several commenta-tors have advanced the idea of security throughempire. They claim that the best way to protectthe United States in the 21st century is to emu-late the British, Roman, and other empires of thepast. The logic behind the idea is that if theUnited States can consolidate the internationalsystem under its enlightened hegemony,America will be both safer and more prosperous.Although the word “empire” is not used, theBush administration’s ambitious new NationalSecurity Strategy seems to embrace the notion ofneoimperialism.

The idea, however, ignores the fact thattoday’s world bears little resemblance to the oneover which Britain or Rome once presided. Twodifferences are obvious: First, the world is farmore interconnected today, which makes theconsequences of sanctimonious, arrogant, orclumsy international behavior riskier politically,diplomatically, and economically. Second, the

potential costs associated with making enemiestoday are far greater than they were for empirespast. Indeed, the British and the Romans werethe targets of assassinations, arson, and otherforms of anti-imperial backlash, but that activitywas typically small-scale and took place far fromthe mother country. Forms of backlash today, incontrast, could be large-scale and directed atAmerica’s homeland.

Most of all, the strategy of empire is likely tooverstretch and bleed America’s economy and itsmilitary and federal budgets, and the overexten-sion could hasten the decline of the UnitedStates as a superpower, as it did the Soviet Unionand Great Britain. The strategy could also havethe opposite effect from what its proponentsclaim it would have; that is, it would alarm othernations and peoples and thus provoke counter-balancing behavior and create incentives forother nations to acquire weapons of massdestruction as an insurance policy againstAmerican military might.

The Empire Strikes OutThe “New Imperialism” and Its Fatal Flaws

by Ivan Eland

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of Putting “Defense’” Back intoU.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post–Cold War World (2001).

Executive Summary

No. 459 November 26, 2002

Introduction

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, ter-rorist attacks on New York and Washington,several foreign policy observers have concludedthat America should look to the vanishedempires of the past for foreign policy guidance,not because the strategy of empire should bescrupulously avoided, but because the strategyof empire should be unabashedly embraced.1

Perhaps the most outspoken advocate of thisview is Max Boot of the Council on ForeignRelations and former Wall Street Journal editori-al features editor. The September 11 attacks,says Boot, were “the result of insufficientAmerican involvement and ambition; the solu-tion is to be more expansive in our goals andmore assertive in our implementation.”2 Bootholds up the 19th-century British Empire as anexample of what he has in mind: “Afghanistanand other troubled lands today cry out for thesort of enlightened foreign administration onceprovided by self-confident Englishmen in jodh-purs and pith helmets.”3

Another advocate of empire is WashingtonPost columnist Sebastian Mallaby. He says that“the logic of neoimperialism is too compelling. . . to resist. The chaos of the world is toothreatening to ignore, and existing methodsfor dealing with that chaos have been triedand found wanting.”4 He therefore calls for an“imperialist revival” wherein orderly societies,led by the United States, can and should takea page from the past and “impose their owninstitutions on disorderly ones.”5

The most sophisticated argument in favor ofempire, however, comes from Atlantic Monthly cor-respondent Robert Kaplan. Kaplan says thatAmerican policymakers should turn to chroni-clers of the Greek, Roman, and British empiresfor helpful hints about how to run American for-eign policy. “Our future leaders could do worsethan be praised for their . . . ability to bring pros-perity to distant parts of the world underAmerica’s soft imperial influence,” writes Kaplan,and “Rome, in particular, is a model for hege-monic power, using various means to encouragea modicum of order in a disorderly world.”6

Holding to that theme, Kaplan looks to thebloody Second Punic War between Rome andCarthage and to the prowess of EmperorTiberius. Though he admits that Tiberius wassomething of an absolutist, Kaplan ultimatelypraises the emperor for combining “diplomacywith the threat of force to preserve a peace thatwas favorable to Rome.”7

What Boot, Mallaby, and Kaplan all havein common—besides being journalists byprofession—is a belief in security throughempire; that is, they consider expansion to bein the U.S. national interest. Their main lineof reasoning appears to be as follows: “If yourneighbors don’t seem able to get their politi-cal act together, then it may be in your bestinterest to colonize them.”8 Today’s advo-cates of empire, however, are not so crass asto endorse the “bad” imperialism of thepast—which was characterized by conquestand exploitation. Rather, they advocate“good” imperialism—which is aimed at mak-ing the world a better place. As Boot puts it:“We don’t want to enslave other countriesand loot their resources. We want to liberateoppressed peoples and extend to them thebenefits of liberal institutions.”9 Althoughthe word “empire” is never used, the Bushadministration’s expansive new NationalSecurity Strategy seems to adopt suchneoimperialist notions. The document ambi-tiously promises that “we will actively workto bring the hope of democracy, develop-ment, free markets and free trade to everycorner of the world” and to take global lead-ership in that mission.10 The combination ofprofligate spending to dissuade other powersfrom challenging U.S. military supremacy,preventive military attacks on emergingthreats before they are formed, the expand-ing overseas presence of U.S. armed forces,and increased foreign aid and overseasnation-building activities is reminiscent ofempires past.11

Talk of an “enlightened” imperialism,however, is not new.12 This paper providesanalysis of and lessons from history thatshow that the costs of imperial overstretchcan erode the economic basis of a superpow-

2

In the wake ofSeptember 11,

2001, several foreign policy

observers haveconcluded that

America shouldlook to the

vanished empiresof the past forforeign policy

guidance.

er’s status. It also shows that imperial behav-ior by one power can lead to counterbalanc-ing by other powers. Imperial expansion caneven cause proliferation of weapons of massdestruction among poor countries as thegreat equalizers vis-à-vis the imperial power.Finally, the military interventions required tomaintain an empire can erode the founda-tions of the constitutional system of a repub-lic such as the United States.

It Takes an Empire

In his 1919 book, The State in Peace andWar, political theorist John Watson attempt-ed to provide the moral justification for an“enlightened” imperialism. In a nutshell,Watson argued that outsiders have a “legiti-mate authority” to run the affairs of troubledcountries if they are “consciously acting onthe basis of a higher good,” namely that ofadvancing civilization and development.13

“Political rule over others,” he wrote, is “justi-fied if the rulers exercise their authority for agood that transcends their own desires” forpower and material gain, the hallmarks oftraditional imperial rule.14

Like today’s advocates of “enlightened”imperialism, Watson believed there is “good”imperialism and “bad” imperialism. He sawhis idea of “good” imperialism approximatedin the British Empire, which he recognizedwas born of bloodshed and exploitation, buthe thought it had a positive historical impactbecause it implanted democratic institutionsin diverse places. Watson, in other words,considered empire not an inherently morallyoffensive idea but a potential force for good.

Framing the idea of empire as a force forgood, however, is one of the recurring themesof empires throughout history. Indeed theRoman and British empires were formed, notby force alone, but on the basis of their capac-ity to present their authority at home andabroad as being in the service of right andpeace. That is how empires have regularly jus-tified their authority to use instruments ofcoercion extraterritorially; that is, they have

felt they were exercising “imperial sovereign-ty” rather than just “national sovereignty.”The Romans, for example, viewed their impe-rialism not only as a way to gain honor andriches but also as a unifying force that wouldspread Roman ideals and produce a widen-ing sphere of order beneficial to those fortu-nate enough to live within that sphere.

In the mid-19th century, philosopher JohnStuart Mill defended the British Empire onthe grounds that it was not only in England’sstrategic and economic interest to imposeorder on the periphery, but also that empirebrought the benefits of higher civilization tomisgoverned or ungoverned peoples. It also,claimed Mill, increased England’s power andprestige, which was “a great advantage tomankind.”15 British officials and intellectualswould later characterize British imperialism asthe beneficial nexus of self-interest and altru-ism. Cecil Rhodes, for example, would write,“The more of the world we inhabit the betterit is for the human race,” and Oxford profes-sor Spencer Wilkinson opined that Britain’shistory not only benefited the British people,but also was a “service rendered to Europe andto mankind” and “carried with it the possibil-ity of that larger service to which we give thename Empire.”16

Today’s advocates of empire similarly talk interms of both an imperial imperative—coloniz-ing the world’s zones of disorder will be goodfor us—and imperial virtue—colonizing theworld’s zones of disorder will be good for thenatives. Kaplan, for example, says that “the wiseemployment of force [is] the surest guide toprogress” and that imperialism is a “depend-able form of protection for ethnic minoritiesand others under violent assault.”17 Boot agreesand justifies imperialism as a way to liberatepeople from chaos or tyrannical rule and tobring to them the blessings of a better way oflife. He stresses how American empire can “feedthe hungry, tend the sick, and impose the ruleof law” in troubled places.18 Similarly, accord-ing to the Bush administration’s NationalSecurity Strategy, there is a “single model fornational success: freedom, democracy, and freeenterprise.”19

3

Although theword “empire” isnever used, theBush administra-tion’s expansivenew NationalSecurity Strategyseems to adoptneoimperialistnotions.

In Walter Russell Mead’s taxonomy ofU.S. foreign policy, advocates of bringing civ-ilization to troubled lands through enlight-ened imperialism—both conservatives andliberals—are called Wilsonians, after the ide-alistic Woodrow Wilson.20

We’re All Wilsonians Now

After World War I, President Wilsonadvanced the idea of creating a mandatory sys-tem of protectorates, whereby the colonialpossessions of the defeated Ottoman andGerman empires would be put under Western“trusteeship” in order “to build up . . . a politi-cal unit that can take charge of its own affairs”eventually.21 Under Wilson’s plan, “imperialsovereignty” would have been exercised, not bya single nation, but by many.

Wilson’s project ultimately failed, but theidea behind it has been undergoing a resurrec-tion ever since the Cold War ended.22 Mostrecently, Robert Cooper, a senior foreign poli-cy adviser to British prime minister Tony Blair,has tried to update Wilson by developing theidea of “cooperative empire.”23 Cooper arguesthat the existence of zones of disorder—suchas Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Somalia,and Zimbabwe—is too dangerous for estab-lished states to tolerate anymore. “What isneeded,” says Cooper, “is a new kind of impe-rialism, one compatible with human rightsand cosmopolitan values: an imperialismwhich aims to bring order and organiza-tion.”24 Cooper suggests that Western states,perhaps acting under the mandate of theUnited Nations or some other internationalbody, could take political responsibility forzones of disorder and provide good govern-ment and institutional order until the localscan do it themselves. The parallels withWilson are unmistakable: Wilson justified theinvasion of other countries by claiming that itwould teach them “to elect good men” or thatthey were deemed excessively disorderly andposed “a public nuisance at our doorstep,” theofficial explanation for his 1915 occupation ofHaiti.25

The debate among today’s advocates ofempire is mostly about the degree to whichthe United States should cooperate withother countries in its imperial efforts. Boot,for example, recommends “a formal systemof United Nations mandates” modeled onWilson’s “trusteeship” program.26 Mallaby,however, says that the best way to grapplewith weak and failed states is to create a “newinternational body” with a governing struc-ture that is not subject to the UnitedNations, with its Chinese and Russian vetoes.That new body, he says, “would assemblenation-building muscle and expertise andcould be deployed wherever its American-ledboard decided.” Its creation, he adds, wouldbe independent of the UN but serve the samepurpose that Wilson’s “system of mandatesdid after World War I.”27

Kaplan is more blunt in his assessment ofU.S. predominance and emphasizes “delega-tion” rather than “cooperation.” For him, theUnited States is a force unto itself: “Our prizefor winning the Cold War is not merely theopportunity to expand NATO, or to holddemocratic elections in places that never hadthem, but something far broader: We andnobody else will write the terms for internationalsociety.”28 The extent to which the UN or anyother international institutions matterdepends on how much the United Statesmakes them matter; because “the UN is effec-tive to the degree that it has the tacitapproval of a great power.”29 Any “imperialsovereignty” over the world’s zones of disor-der may therefore fall to the UN or someother international body in practice, saysKaplan, but it will be the United States thatgives that sovereignty its meaning.

The Strategy of Empire

The new imperialists have been embold-ened to use the attacks of September 11 tojustify an American empire to tame failedstates that they believe could become havensfor terrorists. They, however, are not interest-ed merely in pacifying dangerous corners of

4

Framing the ideaof empire as a

force for good isone of the recur-

ring themes ofempires through-

out history.

the planet where America’s enemies can hideand conspire, and where tyrants, mass mur-derers, and other predators can deny theirpeople a decent life. Many are interested inimplementing the theory of hegemonic sta-bility, which holds that a massive imbalanceof power makes for the most stable interna-tional system because no one will be willingor able to challenge the dominant power.30

The object of U.S. foreign policy, they argue,should be not mere national defense butinternational supremacy.

In its new National Security Strategy, theBush administration acknowledges anattempt to discourage other powers fromchallenging U.S. supremacy: “Our forces willbe strong enough to dissuade potentialadversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing or equaling thepower of the United States.”31

The Bush administration’s views on thedesirability of dissuading potential oppo-nents from challenging U.S. dominanceprobably emanate from a document writtenin 2000 with input from several individualswho are now high-level administration offi-cials. In “Rebuilding America’s Defenses:Strategy, Forces and Resources for a NewCentury,” which builds on a controversialdraft 1992 Department of Defense defensepolicy guidelines document that some of thesame individuals helped write as members ofthe first Bush administration, speaks of pre-cluding the rise of a rival to U.S. preeminenceby spending robustly on the globally presentU.S. military in order to mold the interna-tional system to comport with U.S. idealsand interests.32

Enter the strategy of empire. The strategyof empire seeks to make security-motivatedpower striving unnecessary for allies andunwise for enemies.33 The strategy presumesthat small powers will “bandwagon” with theempire, and big powers will be too overawedto challenge it. The flip side of the presump-tion is that when an empire’s power dimin-ishes, small powers will defect and big powerswill become more assertive. A decline in rela-tive power, it is therefore argued, will create a

more disorderly and less peaceful world. Thedecay of the British Empire at the end of the19th century is often cited as an example ofthat process. The pertinent reading of histo-ry goes something like this: As British hege-mony declined, smaller states that previouslyhad incentives to cooperate with Britainchanged their allegiances, and big powersbecame bolder. The result was World War Iand its aftermath.34

Of course, the mechanics of implement-ing empire today are far different than theyhave been in the past: vulgar territorial con-quest has been replaced by security guaran-tees, treaty obligations, forward deploy-ments, small wars, and open-ended peace-keeping and nation-building operations. Yetthe underlying logic of empire remains thesame. Empires operate, not in terms of con-ducting relations with states, but in terms ofprevailing over the relations among states;that is, empires try to abolish the structuralanarchy of the international system by assim-ilating states into an overarching order.

Given America’s disproportionate mili-tary and economic superiority, there is now atemptation to try to revise the world and“universalize both peace and the institutionsof freedom” by extending an Americanimperium across the planet.35 Kaplan, forexample, says, “The subsuming of theWarring States under the Confucian valuesystem of the Han emperors was a goodthing: its global equivalent can now only beachieved by the United States.”36 Mallabysays: “A new imperial moment has arrived,and by virtue of its power America is boundto play the leading role. The question is notwhether the United States will seek to fill thevoid created by the demise of Europeanempires but whether it will acknowledge thatthis is what it is doing.”37 To which Bootwould add, “America should not be afraid tofight ‘the savage wars of peace’ if necessary toenlarge the ‘empire of liberty.’”38

Fear, however, has nothing to do with whythe strategy of empire is fatally flawed. Therealities of international politics are what doit in.

5

Today’s advo-cates of empiretalk in terms ofboth an imperialimperative andimperial virtue.

Realism’s PrematureObituary

Since the demise of the Soviet Union andthe end of the Cold War, several observershave concluded that the system of interna-tional politics has been fundamentally trans-formed and that the realist school’s39 con-cepts of structural anarchy, self-help, andsecurity competition are no longer applica-ble.40 But the system of international politicshas not really been transformed. America’semergence as the only superpower is achange in the system, not a change of the sys-tem.41 The strategy of empire is thereforelikely to encounter many of the same limita-tions that empires have encountered in thepast, which means the risks and costs ofenforcing hegemony will eventually rise tounsustainable levels. In other words, thestrategy of empire is habitually self-defeating.There are three factors that explain why thatis so: (1) new great powers invariably rise, (2)those great powers logically counterbalanceagainst the dominant power, and (3) thedominant power exhausts itself with ever-escalating attempts to maintain its primacy.

Why New Powers RiseIn the early 1990s, a triumphant Ameri-

can commentator argued that the Bushadministration’s war against Iraq “marks thedawning of the Pax Americana” and that U.S.grand strategy should strive to lock inAmerica’s post–Cold War hegemony “tosecure the ‘new world order’ that has beenthe goal of American policy since PresidentWoodrow Wilson.”42 With U.S. “world lead-ership,” assured another commentator,“today’s military midgets will be content tostay that way.”43

Like those of today’s advocates of empire,such views presume that American hegemo-ny can be made to last because the benevo-lence of U.S. power will stave off the emer-gence of new great power rivals. “We’re goodguys,” Boot reminds us.44 True enough, butan empire’s intent has little to do with why

new great powers rise. What leads to theemergence of new great powers is imitation,the diffusion of power, and a proliferation ofinterests among states with advancing status.

Political scientist Kenneth Waltz gives theanalysis a starting point. In his now-classicTheory of International Politics, he observes thatcompetition in the international system“produces a tendency toward sameness of thecompetitors”; that is, they regularly imitateeach other’s successful attributes or riskfalling behind.45 States will adopt the behav-iors that made the hegemonic power success-ful, thus making themselves more successfulin the process.

Against that backdrop, the strategy ofempire allows other states to free ride mili-tarily and economically, thus enhancing theirability to catch up with the hegemon. It doesso from two directions: it speeds up the eco-nomic growth of other countries by reducingwhat they would otherwise have to spend ontheir own defense and slows the hegemon’seconomic growth by putting an enormoustax burden on its economy. As political scien-tist Christopher Layne correctly points out:

A hegemon tends to overpay for secu-rity, which eventually weakens theinternal foundation of its externalposition. Other states underpay forsecurity, which allows them to shiftadditional resources into economical-ly productive investments. Moreover,benign hegemony facilitates the dif-fusion of wealth and technology topotential rivals. As a consequence, dif-ferential growth rates trigger shifts inrelative economic power that ulti-mately result in the emergence of newgreat powers.46

The strategy of empire, in other words, is asubsidy that allows other states to acquirethe economic and technological wherewithalto eventually defend themselves and pursuetheir own ambitions if they so choose. Thiskind of advancement by other states means,not that the hegemon has become weaker in

6

The risks andcosts of enforcing

hegemony willeventually rise to

unsustainable levels.

an absolute sense, but that other states havebecome relatively stronger and have thusdeveloped the foundations to compete ininternational politics.

At the same time, rising states will developgrowing economic and political interests intheir external environment, and with theiradvancing status, they will be in a position todo something about it. Indeed, the centraleffect of the diffusion of power is that italters states’ ability to influence and makemore favorable the world around them.47

The United States was a free rider on theBritish Empire from the birth of theAmerican republic until it became a worldpower around the turn of the 20th century.Although tensions with the British flaredfrom time to time, the United States used theshield of Great Britain to keep militaryexpenditures low and build the world’slargest economy. For most of its history, theUnited States reaped many economic advan-tages of staying out of wars against the bigEuropean powers and limiting or delaying itsinvolvement in the conflicts that it did enter(for example, the Napoleonic wars and WorldWars I and II). When the British Empirebegan to erode by overextension and involve-ment in World Wars I and II, the UnitedStates began “leading” and Great Britainbecame a “follower.” Currently, the UnitedStates spends nearly $400 billion a year fornational defense, as much as the combinedtotal defense budgets of the next 15 nationswith the highest expenditures for security.The United States could easily go the way ofGreat Britain by depleting its economy withmilitary overextension.

Today, of course, it should be pointed outthat the economic gap between the UnitedStates and its economic rivals has actuallygrown over the past decade, with theAmerican economy growing an average of 5.8percent a year.48 But there is no guaranteethis growth will continue. First of all, thepotential economic disruption caused by aprotracted war on the periphery cannot beassumed away. Take the Vietnam War, whichcost 9.3 percent of the gross domestic prod-

uct in the peak year of 1968. The Departmentof Defense estimates the total direct costs ofthat war at $173 billion. To that figure mustbe added veterans’ benefits costs of $220 bil-lion and interest of $31 billion. Billions morewere spent on taxpayer-funded educationalprograms for returning vets. Those com-bined expenditures took a heavy toll on theU.S. economy and contributed to inflation,unemployment, deficit spending, and ulti-mately recession. President Lyndon Johnsonintroduced a 10 percent income tax sur-charge to help pay for the increasingly expen-sive war and to hold down inflation. Thewar’s massive costs also drained America’sgold reserves and sparked an internationalmonetary crisis involving a threat to U.S.gold reserves in 1967–68.49

Second, 10 years is too short a time hori-zon to make proclamations about the long-term economic sustainability of plans torevise the world under a Pax Americana.Fortunes can turn. During the 1980s, forexample, the Japanese economy seemed to begrowing at a miraculous rate. But during the1990s the miracle ended. Japan now lags farbehind the United States.

Can fortunes unexpectedly turn for theUnited States? Recent trends suggest that theU.S. economy, like every other economy, is notimmune from trouble. What’s more, America’sability to maintain its economic position—andthus fund empire—depends on where theeconomies of the 21st century make theirhome. The case is not closed that the UnitedStates will be that home. According to a recentNew York Times report:

A Japanese laboratory has built theworld’s fastest computer, a machineso powerful that it matches the rawprocessing power of the 20 fastestAmerican computers combined andfar outstrips the previous leader, anI.B.M. built machine. The achieve-ment . . . is evidence that a technolo-gy race that most American engi-neers thought they were winninghandily is far from over.50

7

The strategy ofempire allowsother states tofree ride militari-ly and economi-cally, thusenhancing theirability to catch upwith the hegemon.

Counterbalancing Behavior Realist theory posits that “in internation-

al politics, overwhelming power repels andleads other states to balance against it.”51

There are two main reasons for this behavior:states can never be certain about the future,and states can count only on themselves toalways pursue their own interests. Thus, asnew powers develop, they will logically takesteps to balance against a lopsided power dis-tribution as a hedge to protect their ownsecurity and independence.

Advocates of empire, however, are quick toreply that a benevolent hegemon will not elicitthe same reaction as empires past did and willthus forestall the emergence of counterbalanc-ing powers. As stated earlier, the logic behindtheir argument is that states will willingly“bandwagon” with the empire because of thebenefits of free riding. Thus Boot argues thatother states may kvetch about overwhelmingAmerican dominance, “but they too benefitfrom U.S.-underwritten security and I think,deep down in their cynical hearts, they realizeit. Otherwise they would spend more of theirbudgets on defense.”52

But that logic presumes that states will belastingly indifferent to the fluid nature of poli-tics and inherent uncertainty about thefuture. As political scientist Joseph Grieconotes, however, because states worry thattoday’s ally can become tomorrow’s rival,“they pay close attention to how cooperationmight affect relative capabilities in the future.”53

In other words, states react, not to other states’intentions, but to their capacity to do harmshould things change. That kind of thinkingwould help explain why the United States,which was not directly threatened by theworld-spanning British Empire in the late19th and early 20th centuries neverthelesseventually built up its own capabilities.

Columbia University political scientistRobert Jervis cuts to the heart of the uncer-tainty issue: “Minds can be changed, newleaders can come to power, values can shift,new opportunities and dangers can arise.”54

Unless states are willing to put their fate inthe hands of others, they must be prepared to

help themselves in the eventuality that thingsturn sour. Indeed, no state can guaranteethat a hegemon will not someday becomeintrusive and domineering, in which caseother states would no longer be safe andsecure. Prudence therefore dictates thatstates prepare for that eventuality, whichmeans striving to have as much power as pos-sible in case a friendly neighbor turns intothe neighborhood bully; in other words, eventhough you trust the person holding thematches, you should keep a fire extinguisherhandy.

This philosophy does not mean, however,that balancing behavior is necessarily anabrupt phenomenon. Recall, for example,that after the Dual Alliance betweenGermany and Austria-Hungary in 1879, ittook France and Russia until 1894—15years—to make a formal alliance to balanceagainst them.55

Moreover, the fact that Europe has notalready balanced against the United States isnot necessarily an exception to the rule, assome writers have claimed.56 The transatlanticrelationship has been weakening. There havebeen mounting expressions of resentment ofU.S. power and American influence over theContinent’s affairs, as well as friction overissues ranging from global warming toMideast policy.57 Trade disagreements overexports as varied as bananas and steel havebecome more commonplace, as have disagree-ments about tax laws and Internet regula-tions.58 Acrimonious economic quarrelsbetween the European Union and the UnitedStates have occurred, such as the one in whichthe EU blocked the merger of American cor-porate giants General Electric and Honeywellon antitrust grounds in 2001.59 Meanwhile,Europeans have demonstrated an increasinginterest in developing their own security anddefense structures and have announced plansto create a sizable emergency force on theirown. They have also already resorted to non-traditional means of balancing, such as pro-mulgating treaties and international institu-tions—such as the Land Mine Ban Treaty andthe International Criminal Court—in an

8

The United Statescould easily go

the way of GreatBritain by deplet-

ing its economywith military

overextension.

attempt to try to constrain U.S. militarybehavior on the global stage.

The reason the transatlantic relationshipstill functions as well as it does today is prob-ably not because of an unselfish desire byEuropeans to follow the United States butbecause of residual balancing against what isstill the greater uncertainty on the Conti-nent: the long-term future of Russia. AsColumbia University political scientist RichardBetts has pointed out:

Major discontinuities in internation-al relations are seldom predicted.Who would not have been deridedand dismissed in 1988 for predictingthat within a mere three yearsEastern Europe would be liberated,the Communist Party of the SovietUnion deposed, and the Union itselfon the ash heap of history? Yet it ishard to believe that the probabilityof equally revolutionary negativedevelopments, of economic crisisand ideological disillusionment withdemocracy, of scapegoating andinstability leading to miscalculation,escalation, and war several yearsfrom now is lower than the probabil-ity of the current peace seemed sever-al years ago.60

Strategic OverextensionBecause the strategy of empire equates

national security with maintaining whatsome people have called “the functionalequivalent of global containment,” the emer-gence of balance-prone powers threatens ahegemon implicitly.61 As such, a hegemonmust take escalating steps to both ward offpotential challenges and persuade securitydependents that they are still protected. Thechief danger here is strategic overextensionbecause the maintenance of what is inessence a military protectorship is open-ended and requires an empire to continuallyenlarge the geographic scope of its securityresponsibilities. Indeed, stabilizing one

region logically necessitates the stabilizationof the neighbouring region to safeguard thefirst. For example, much of the impetus forthe U.S.-led war in Kosovo was to protectinvestment in the fragile peace that the Westimposed in Bosnia. The process of strategicoverextension becomes self-reinforcing because,each time a hegemon expands its perimeter,new potential threats are encountered thatdemand further expansion. As political scien-tist Robert H. Johnson explains, political“uncertainty leads to self-extension, whichleads in turn to new uncertainty and self-extension.”62 Maintaining empire, in otherwords, requires perpetually widening com-mitments. Afghanistan is already an obviousexample of this process of self-extension. Thefate of Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul,it is argued, now requires Washington to sta-bilize Central Asia, disentangle the Kashmirconflict, and resolve conflicts in the MiddleEast.63

What is most alarming about this idea isthat it leads to a virtually limitless foreignpolicy and a potentially exhausting prolifera-tion of American security concerns.64 Thereason is that the consolidating logic ofempire ultimately gives way to a universalisticconclusion. During the Vietnam War,Secretary of State Dean Rusk anticipated thisview when he said that the United States “issafe only to the extent that its total environ-ment is safe.”65 More than 100 years ago,British diplomat Lord Archibald Primrose ofRosebery recognized the basic unsoundnessof such thinking:

Scarcely any question can arise in anypart of the world without involvingBritish interests. This consideration,instead of widening, rather circum-scribes the field of our actions. Fordid we not strictly limit the principleof intervention we should always besimultaneously engaged in someforty wars.66

It would be an exaggeration to suggestthat the United States will soon be drawn

9

Each time a hege-mon expands itsperimeter, newpotential threatsare encounteredthat demand fur-ther expansion.

simultaneously into “some forty wars,” butthe logic of empire points in the direction ofever-increasing commitments and securityburdens. Nineteenth-century British policy-makers, for example, believed India was vitalto their interests. The British government,therefore, felt it necessary to safeguard landand sea routes to India, which necessitatedpropping up the Ottoman Empire; stabiliz-ing the Mediterranean, Egypt, and SouthAfrica; and assuming responsibility for thePersian Gulf. The result, says British militaryhistorian Correlli Barnett, “was a classicexample of strategic overextension. Far frombeing a source of strength to England, Indiaserved only to weaken and distract her.”67

Even more fundamental, today’s advo-cates of empire dodge the central foreign pol-icy question facing U.S. policymakers in thepost–September 11 world: What shouldAmerica’s priorities be? Because everything isa priority under the strategy of empire, thereare no conceptual brakes to prevent theUnited States from engaging in a sweepingactivism that saps both its resources andcredibility. Thus Kaplan may invoke Sun-Tzu’s maxim that “the side that knows whento fight and when not to fight will take thevictory. There are roadways not to be trav-eled, armies not to be attacked, walled citiesnot to be assaulted.”68 But Kaplan says nextto nothing about what roadways should notbe traveled, what armies should not beattacked, and what cities should not beassaulted—if any—under his vision.

The United States, of course, cannot beeverywhere at once, so if it adopted the strat-egy of empire it would have to rely on a pos-ture of extended deterrence, which wouldpromise to defend allies from threats ema-nating from hostile powers, the periphery,and each other. Because the credibility ofextended deterrence depends on having notonly the apparent resolve but also the capac-ity to protect, Washington would have toshore up its regional commitments wheneverthe capabilities of potential challengersimproved. The impending vulnerability ofAmerica’s forward-deployed forces in East

Asia illustrates how this posture would likelyget more difficult over time, not less.69

When East Asia’s military power was mea-sured in Chinese infantry divisions of peas-ants, their limited reach allowed America tomaintain a presence in the region withoutbeing threatened in return. For five decadesthe United States militarily dominated EastAsia by operating from forward bases thatwere secure and from warships that were vir-tually immune from attack. With theincreased reach of Chinese missiles, this era israpidly coming to a close.70

Of course, one way to try to enhanceAmerican credibility would be to deployincreasingly large numbers of U.S. forces onforeign soil and ships in foreign ports. Butsuch forward engagement is practical onlywhen small, dispersed forces can efficientlydominate a vast geographical area. In addi-tion, the trend has been in the opposite direc-tion—the United States has reduced its over-seas military presence and foreign bases—making the extended deterrence strategy ringhollow. The U.S. military (particularly theNavy), by choosing to purchase expensivearmaments in ever smaller quantities, reducesthe number of places the dwindling (but morepowerful) U.S. forces can be at once.

The extended deterrence strategy also willnot be credible because the United States doesnot really put the same value on all parts of theworld. As a result, a policy of extended deter-rence could actually invite challenges from rivalstates wanting to expose the underlying unreal-ity of the posture. In such a case, Washingtonwould be forced to choose between a humiliat-ing climb-down or a conflict over a strategicallyirrelevant piece of real estate.

The strategy of empire could prove coun-terproductive in other ways as well. Forstarters, Washington’s self-assumed respon-sibility to keep order could be exploited by allsorts of states wanting to advance their owngoals. Taiwan could declare its independencewith the expectation that the United Stateswould protect it from China’s reaction;Pakistan could exploit its new strategicimportance by successfully challenging India

10

Because every-thing is a priority

under the strategyof empire, there

are no conceptualbrakes to preventthe United Statesfrom engaging in

a sweepingactivism that sapsboth its resources

and credibility.

on Kashmir; rebel groups everywhere couldintentionally provoke crackdowns—like theKosovo Liberation Army did in southernSerbia in 1999—with the presumption thatthe United States would step in and interna-tionalize their cause; and Arab countries,knowing that the Bush administration needstheir support for any invasion of Iraq, arewithholding it, unless the United States canshow progress in its efforts to mediate theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.

The strategy of empire also encouragesother states to pass the buck and duck theirresponsibilities, as European Union countriesdid during the early 1990s, leaving it to theUnited States to intervene in Bosnia.71 Thatevasion is not surprising. “Bandwagoning”does not necessarily mean that other countrieswant the United States to lead them. Rather,as historian Ronald Steel points out:

What they mostly want is not leader-ship but support. The Europeanswould like a pledge that if they yetagain engage in war with one anoth-er, we will be there to help them outof it. The Japanese would like us tobe both their dependent customerand uncomplaining protector. Assortedclients and protectorates, most of themleft over from the Cold War, want usto continue to provide them withbribes and guarantees.72

In the empires of old the center exploitedthe periphery to seize resources, ensure captivemarkets for its goods, and generate taxes forits imperial adventures; America’s neoempirehas none of those advantages and insteadincurs very high costs. Those costs includeheavy spending on defense, the associateddrag on the U.S. economy, and retaliatory ter-rorism in response to the U.S. overseas mili-tary presence and intervention needed topolice the empire (a calculation based on datafrom the U.S. State Department indicates thatanti-U.S. attacks account for 63 percent of allinternational terrorist incidents).73 U.S.friends and allies pass on the costs of their

own security to the United States without giv-ing anything in return—for example, openingtheir markets to U.S. products and services.

An acute understanding of the burdensthat buck passing imposes on an empire mayhelp explain why Russian president VladimirPutin has not loudly objected to the Bushadministration’s plans to expand the waragainst terrorism, enlarge NATO, and buildan anti-ballistic missile shield. Moscow’ssilence may be part of a shrewd strategy torestore Russia’s great power status by turningits political attention and resources inward74

and exporting weapons and technologies out-ward,75 while gladly allowing the United Statesto encumber itself pacifying the world’s backalleys, babysitting Eastern Europe, and devel-oping and deploying a missile defense systemto cover allied and client countries, whichcould potentially cost more than the grossdomestic product of many countries.

From this perspective, not voicing opposi-tion to an empire’s actions doesn’t mean astate is not trying to balance against it. Astate may play along in the short termbecause it recognizes that empire is an uphillclimb that becomes ever steeper for the hege-mon but provides weaker states with tempo-rary advantages while they improve their rel-ative position. Indeed, throughout the 19thcentury the United States meticulouslyavoided joining the British Empire’sEuropean and imperial fights—fights thatultimately bled the British dry. Americans,meanwhile, were free riders on the RoyalNavy, which kept the French out of NorthAmerica and the major sea-lanes of the worldopen to free trade. The result: the UnitedStates became the dominant power in theWestern Hemisphere and eventually sur-passed Great Britain in all terms of nationalpower. The strategy of empire, in otherwords, undermined itself; the British Empire,it must be remembered, was involved in nofewer than 98 different wars and militarycampaigns between 1800 and 1906.76

Not surprisingly, many of today’s advo-cates of empire make the opposite claim: thatthe danger the United States faces is not

11

America’s neo-empire has noneof the advantagesof old empiresand insteadincurs veryhigh costs.

strategic overextension but “underexten-sion.” Boot, for example, writes of “an equal,if not greater, danger of undercommitmentand lack of confidence” around the world.77

Although such thinking is consistent withthe strategy of empire, it does not counter thecore point: a foreign policy that equatesnational interests with the maintenance ofworld order is an albatross around the neckthat will eventually lead to its pursuer’sundoing. Indeed, according to political ana-lyst Benjamin Schwarz, the United States willfind itself

caught in a dilemma that eventuallyensnares all hegemons. Stabilizingthe international system is a wastingproposition. While other states bene-fit from the stability the predomi-nant power provides, they have littleincentive to pay their “fair share” ofthe costs of protection since thehegemon will defend the status quoin its own interests, regardless ofwhat these lesser states contribute. . . .Forced to place such importance on“security,” the hegemon directs capi-tal, creativity, and attention from thecivilian sector, even as other states,freed from onerous spending forsecurity, add resources to economi-cally productive investments. Thisleads over time to the erosion of thepreponderant power’s relative eco-nomic strength. As economic, andhence military, capabilities deterio-rate, so does the very comparativeadvantage over other powers uponwhich hegemony is founded. Thehegemon’s declining advantagespurs the emergence of great powerrivals, requiring the hegemon tospend more on defense to maintainits preponderance, which, of course,only further deteriorates its competi-tive advantage.78

The United States accounts for about 40percent of total worldwide defense spending,

up from 28 percent in the mid-1980s, theheight of the Reagan military buildup. That’stwo and a half times the combined spendingof all its potential rivals.79 But, as an indica-tion of its overextension, the United Statesaccounts for only 29 percent of the world’sGDP. Another comparison indicates thatU.S. allies are free riding: although the U.S.economy is larger than the next three largesteconomies on the planet—those of Japan,Germany, and the United Kingdom—U.S.defense spending is larger than that of thenext 15 highest defense spending nations,most of which are rich U.S. allies.80

With the war on terrorism, the Bushadministration has already requested an addi-tional $45.5 billion for 2003, bringing thetotal to $396 billion, an increase of 13 percent.In all, the administration plans to spend $2.1trillion on the military over the next five years,which will raise annual U.S defense spending15 percent above the Cold War average.81 Howmuch more the strategy of empire will cost isunclear. Also, foreign aid, nation building, andother activities related to the strategy are notfree. The Bush administration recentlypledged to substantially increase America’score development assistance by 50 percent.82

And American efforts at nation building intiny Bosnia and Kosovo have cost U.S. taxpay-ers an estimated $21 billion so far.83 The moredependents and protectorates Washingtontakes on, the greater the burden on the U.S.economy will be.

Some advocates of an expansive U.S. for-eign policy have argued that actual expendi-tures on a worldwide U.S. military presenceare less than the potential costs to the UnitedStates of future wars resulting from theabsence of such U.S. global policing. Twoacademics, Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press,debunk this myth by using empirical datafrom major wars—World War I and the Iran-Iraq War—to demonstrate that neutral coun-tries incur only small costs, or actually profit,from even large conflicts. Because the worldeconomy—especially in an age of globaliza-tion of trade and investment—is flexible andresilient, neutral countries can profit from

12

U.S. friends andallies pass on the

costs of their ownsecurity to theUnited States

without givinganything in

return.

war by selling to belligerents, by taking overmarkets that warring nations have previouslyserved, by lending money at high rates ofreturn to the fighting countries, and by buy-ing up assets cheaply that have been liquidat-ed by belligerents to fight the war. In addi-tion, Gholz and Press found that the UnitedStates pays much more attempting to ensureglobal security than it would lose from insta-bility and war (and that even with the gener-ous implicit assumption that all U.S. militaryinterventions promote rather than detractfrom global stability). In short, Gholz andPress demonstrate that the current U.S. poli-cy of being the world’s policeman does notpass the cost/benefit test.84 Such empiricaldata confirm the conclusions of the much-earlier intuitive cost/benefit analysis done byEarl Ravenal, a former distinguished researchprofessor of international affairs at George-town University.85

But today’s advocates of empire areundaunted. Regarding a notorious PersianGulf state, for instance, Boot says: “TheWilsonian alternative is clear: We will settlefor nothing less than the establishment ofliberal democracy in Iraq.”86

Imperial Insecurity

Today’s advocates of empire tell us thatAmerica is bound to lead. “Leading” is painlesswhen everyone goes along. But as historian E.H. Carr once observed, the utopian assump-tion that there is a common peace that is syn-onymous with each individual nation’s inter-ests evades the messy fact that there are always“nations desirous of maintaining the statusquo and nations desirous of changing it.”87

Peoples and civilizations also have differenthistories, cultures, and values.88 The existenceof empire does not change those facts, whichraises the question: if conflicting interests area permanent fixture in world politics, is thestrategy of empire really going to make theUnited States safer?

The answer is probably no. Over the longrun the strategy of empire will likely prove

unsustainable and ultimately self-defeating.Certainly, the United States currently has theworld’s most powerful military, and it spendsmuch more on its defense than all its rivalscombined. But it costs far more for the UnitedStates—a relatively secure nation separatedfrom most of the world by two vast oceans—toproject its power across the seas than it doesfor states located on other landmasses to pro-ject their power regionally. In other words,proximity matters, which raises what JohnMearsheimer of the University of Chicago hascalled the “stopping power of water,” the beliefthat “the presence of oceans on much of theearth’s surface makes it impossible for anystate to achieve global hegemony.”89

What’s more, the strategy of empire neces-sarily leads to a devaluation of other states’sovereignty. That’s because accepting theprinciple of noninterference is an impedi-ment to a dominant state seeking to makeother nations conform to its will. State sover-eignty also allows for the formation of multi-ple loci of power and the prospect of powerbalancing, which are things an empire can-not accept if it is committed to maintainingsupremacy. The echo of Rome is clear. Aspolitical scientist Frank Russell once wrote:“Rome . . . never was interested . . . in preserv-ing a balance of power. A balance of powersystem is essentially a device for keeping thepower of different states within limits by asystem of checks and balances. Rome certain-ly was not interested in a balance of power forthe very reason she was interested in amonopoly of power.”90

From this perspective, the strategy ofempire is unlikely to function if all sorts ofstates are allowed to acquire weapons of massdestruction (WMD) as a deterrent against thepower projection of the United States. Thelogic of empire therefore dictates that as fewstates as possible should be allowed to gain adefensive footing with the United States. Inpractice this idea will bring preventativeefforts, including war, to make sure WMDproliferation is stopped at all costs. In itsNational Security Strategy, the Bush admin-istration notes: “These weapons may . . . allow

13

The United Statespays much moreattempting toensure globalsecurity than itwould lose frominstability andwar.

these states to attempt to blackmail theUnited States and our allies to prevent usfrom deterring or repelling the aggressivebehavior of rogue states. Such states also seethese weapons as their best means of over-coming the conventional superiority of theUnited States.”91

In his June 2, 2002, speech to West Point’sgraduating class, President Bush laid out hisvision of a future in which the United Statesmore or less monopolizes global militarypower through preemption if necessary:“America has, and intends to keep, [its] mili-tary strengths beyond challenge,” said Bush,and “we have to be ready for preemptiveaction” because “if we wait for threats to fullymaterialize, we will have waited too long.”92

(Although the president used the word “pre-emptive,” which means taking militaryaction before an imminent attack by anadversary, in many cases the United Statesmight launch a preventive attack to stop anincipient threat before it is even realized, forexample, before a nation working on WMD,such as Iraq, obtains them.)

That approach is consistent with thestrategy of empire. But supporting preventa-tive or preemptive action could shift the rulesof the world order against peace and stabili-ty.93 Indeed, if other nations, such as Indiaand Pakistan, adopted preemption as theirofficial policy, the risk of nuclear war couldactually rise. “One of the reasons there is nota constant state of war,” says a skeptical Bushadministration official, “is that we all expectcertain rules. We just have to be careful that ifwe create exceptions to those rules, the excep-tions justify it—lest we establish precedentsthat others will emulate.”94

“There’s no question that great powerslike the United States [can] launch preventa-tive wars or preemptive strikes whenever theyconclude it’s in their interests,” addsMearsheimer. But the “$64,000 question iswhether or not it makes sense to stand on therooftops and announce loudly to the worldthat this is your doctrine. I think it would bebetter not to do that. I favor the TeddyRoosevelt approach to foreign policy: Speak

softly and carry a big stick.”95 The strategy ofempire, however, is to speak loudly (extendeddeterrence) and cut up and scatter Washing-ton’s inadequate stick all over the place.That’s a blueprint for trouble if there everwas one.

It will also increase the likelihood of war.That’s because the doctrine of prevention or pre-emption is predicated on the “ideology of theoffensive,” which says that striking early is less dif-ficult than striking later. The Bush administra-tion’s National Security Strategy boldly assertsthat “our best defense is a good offense.”96

Consequently, offense-minded states areapt to be war-prone because they believe theprospects for victory are very favorable tothem. What’s more, offense-minded stateshave a tendency to incite security dilemmas,whereby the efforts of weaker states toincrease their relative security undermines, orappears to undermine, the security of theoffense-minded state, thus triggering a spiralof security competition that can culminate inconfrontation or war.97 For example, asChina’s economy grows, it may want moreability to control its security environmentwithin East Asia. The expansion of Chineseinfluence in that region may run afoul of aUnited States, which has a defense perimeterthat is far forward and a military doctrinethat is very preventive or preemptive.

The other major problem with the doc-trine of prevention or preemption is that inthe absence of actual aggression against theUnited States, how will Washington provethat an attack might have happened? Surelysome foreign and domestic critics will dis-count the threat afterward. Inevitable mis-takes will lead to recrimination and suspi-cions about America’s motives. And otherstates will worry that the doctrine could beused against them.98 Hence there is a para-dox. The doctrine of prevention or preemp-tive intervention could actually create agreater incentive for other states to try toacquire WMD secretly as an insurance policyagainst American military might, whichcould in turn spur even more U.S. preventionor preemption. (Yet as President Clinton

14

The strategy ofempire may

provoke counter-productive

responses, includ-ing the prolifera-tion and possible

first use of WMD.

found out in 1998 during Operation DesertFox, preventive attacks on installations asso-ciated with those superweapons oftenfounder on a lack of intelligence on the loca-tion of such clandestine small mobile, ordeeply buried facilities.) The unintended con-sequence of interventionism, in other words,could be more interventionism.

Failed states are already an example ofthose self-reinforcing phenomena. Failedstates matter to today’s advocates of empirebecause the existence of such states raises thespecter that interventionist foreign policiesin one place can have a deadly price tag madepossible by individuals willing to take advan-tage of the situation in another place.Accordingly, the security threat posed byfailed states is really a second-order issue;that is, the danger posed by failed states is aconsequence of something other than statefailure per se. The primary danger is from aninterventionist foreign policy that makesenemies who are resourceful and willingmove into and exploit failed states. The veryproblem of failed states, in other words,shows, not that interventionism necessarilysolves problems, but that interventionismcan create altogether new ones.

Nevertheless, today’s advocates of empireare unable to break out of their consolidatinglogic. Thus, the fact that so many people in theMuslim world dislike America’s meddling isnot seen as an argument for rethinking U.S.policy or assuming a lower profile. Instead,those advocates see it as an argument for deep-er involvement; that is, for ramping up U.S. eco-nomic aid, promulgating foreign educationaland health care programs, telling other statesand aspiring states who their leaders should be,and launching wars to transform countries likeIraq “into a beacon of hope.”99 Yet it was suchnation building that led to the attack on U.S.forces in Somalia.

Thus, like the proverbial man who findshimself stuck in a hole, today’s advocates ofempire recommend more digging. But dig-ging will neither get the man out of the holenor make the United States safer. America andits citizens will become an even greater light-

ning rod for the world’s political malcontents.As former Reagan adviser and Cato Institutesenior fellow Doug Bandow warns: “With thegrowing ability of small political movementsand countries to kill U.S. citizens and tothreaten mass destruction, the risks of foreignentanglements increase. . . . In coming years,the United States could conceivably lose oneor more large cities to demented or irrationalretaliation for American intervention.”100

The strategy of empire could make theUnited States less secure in another major wayas well—by dispersing and overtasking its mil-itary personnel and equipment. In fact, arecent top-secret Pentagon war game, codenamed Prominent Hammer, has revealed that,even now, expanding the campaign againstterrorism to a country like Iraq would placesevere strains on personnel and cause deepshortages of certain critical weapons.According to the New York Times, “The wargame measured how the strains of new com-mitments to domestic defense, the demandsof long-term deployments in places like theBalkans and South Korea, southwest Asia andthe Sinai, and the stress of ongoing operationsin Afghanistan, would affect the military’sability to wage and win a new regional war.”101

The conclusion was that the American mili-tary would be stretched very thin. The JointChiefs of Staff subsequently recommendedpostponing an attack against Iraq.

And over the longer term there is the issueof being ready to fight a major theater war ifnecessary. Empires get into trouble becausethey get bogged down fighting protractedsmall wars in the hinterland, garrisoningmyriad outposts, and accumulating mani-fold security and treaty commitments theyare obliged to honor.102 The strategic impli-cations are potentially enormous. One of theprimary reasons Prime Minister NevilleChamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler atMunich in 1938 was that much of Britain’sstrength was diffused throughout its far-flung empire; that is, London was not in aposition to rebuff a rising Nazi Germanyearly on because Britain was overstretched.103

According to British historian P. M. H. Bell:

15

The primary dan-ger is from aninterventionistforeign policythat makes ene-mies who areresourceful andwilling move intoand exploit failedstates.

The fundamental problem was the dis-parity between Britain’s commitmentsand her resources. The commitmentswere almost literally worldwide. TheDominions, though asserting theirindependence of the mother country,still relied on her for protection.Australia and New Zealand, Malayaand Singapore, the Middle East andMediterranean, Western Europe andthe British Isles were all under somekind of threat as the 1930s went on.104

In 1937, Britain’s chiefs of staff produceda gloomy assessment of London’s securityprospects. Their conclusion was thatEngland should not make new enemies. “Thepolicy of ‘appeasement’ should never beappraised without recalling this sternly real-istic recommendation,” says Bell. “To reachan accommodation with Italy in theMediterranean; to avoid confrontation withthe Axis powers over the Spanish Civil War;to find the basis of a settlement withGermany; to make only the most cautiousresponse to Japanese aggression in China—allthis followed in large part from the need todiminish the number of one’s enemies.”105

Empire, in short, reduced Britain’s options inthe face of a horrible danger.

Similarly, the United States may find thatits alliances and commitments around theworld may sap its strength for dealing withany rising power—perhaps China.

My Empire, ’Tis of Thee

If every corner of the globe is dependent onAmerican power, what happens if things gobadly? Georgetown University professorCharles Kupchan predicts, “You will see a sig-nificant retrenchment.”106 But today’s advo-cates of empire are hopeful that Americans canbe induced to sacrifice for empire if patriotismand duty are co-opted for the imperial cause.

Kaplan, for example, says, “Americanpatriotism—honoring the flag, July Fourthcelebrations, and so on—must survive long

enough to provide the military armature foran emerging global civilization that mayeventually make such patriotism obsolete.” Apatriotic American commitment to empire,he argues, will produce a quasi-utopian out-come, that is, “the emergence of some kind ofloose world governance” shaped by theUnited States. “I am concerned,” he explains,“with the United States maneuvering in awily enough fashion to preserve its power forenough decades, so that interlocking globalinstitutions can mature in the meantime,leading to the world governance . . . I support.And world order of some moderate, virtuouskind can only be fostered by the organizingprinciple of a great power, driven by its ownself-interest.” Kaplan therefore extols whathe calls “power politics in the service of patri-otic virtue.”107

Boot describes how 19th-century British sol-diers were willing to die in defense of empire,and he says, “If Americans cannot adopt a sim-ilarly bloody-minded attitude, then they haveno business undertaking imperial policing.”Without skipping a beat he characterizes thetask of “imperial policing” in the 21st centuryas an American duty and asks, “Why not usesome of the awesome power of the U.S. govern-ment to help the downtrodden of the world,just as it is used to help the needy at home?”(Boot’s view from the right seems similar toMadeleine Albright’s view from the left—that is,that the United States should put its impressivemilitary to work to fight wars for “humanitari-an” ends.) He then favorably quotes TheodoreRoosevelt: “A nation’s first duty is within itsown borders, but it is not thereby absolved fromfacing its duties in the world as a whole.”108

But as political scientist Amos Perlmutteronce pointed out in reviewing American histo-ry, Americans are unlikely to be mobilized toembrace a missionary struggle.109 Our historyis one of intervening on the cheap. The excep-tions were World War II and the Cold War, butthose two struggles were characterized by agreat power rivalry with “overarching andthreatening ideologies looking to engulf andenslave.”110 The general American population,in other words, was persuaded to support the

16

London was notin a position torebuff a risingNazi Germany

early on becauseBritain was

overstretched.

human and monetary costs associated withfighting fascism and communism because ofthe expansionistic threat posed by NaziGermany and the Soviet Union. Without sucha totalitarian rival, tolerance of cost will below. Thus, should the United States nowbehave like a crusader state, as today’s advo-cates of empire propose, it will likely have to beelite driven, and thus disconnected from theAmerican people.

Dubious HistoricalReadings

A recurring problem for today’s advocatesof empire is their tendency to draw question-able conclusions from history. ConsiderBoot’s take on India’s experience with Britishcolonialism. He calls on America to do more“state building” in unfamiliar and farawayplaces because “building a national con-sciousness” is “hardly impossible.” After all,he says, “the British turned a collection ofprincely states into modern India.”111 Boot isright, just not in the way he imagines. Whatunified the princely states into modern Indiawas their common cause against British rule.Although India was regarded as the jewel ofthe British Empire, the British record of rulein India was, at best, mixed. In the first partof the 20th century, India’s economic growthstagnated. That stagnation led to justifica-tions for the postindependence policies ofsocialism—instituted in the last half of thecentury—that proved so counterproductive.

More generally, although he championsstate building in far corners of the globe,Boot does admit that “the American trackrecord of imposing democratic regimes ismixed. The most notable successes are Japan,Germany and Italy. The U.S. tended to be lesssuccessful in what later became known as theThird World.”112

Mallaby contends that nation building isa winning proposition and suggests thatfailed nation building is usually a result of alack of will, by which he means not enoughmoney and military muscle, especially on the

part of the United States.113 “In the absenceof greatly increased commitment from theUN’s leading member states,” he says, “a widegap will remain between nation builders’aspiration to create stable democratic statesand what the world’s institutions can deliv-er.”114 In reality, political will is only part ofthe equation. As Ronald Steel has pointedout: “The British have been trying to imposetheir idea of order on Northern Ireland forthree centuries. In 1915 the United Statesinvaded Haiti and stayed nineteen years. TheUnited Nations went to Cyprus [more than]thirty years ago to separate feuding Greeksand Turks; its forces are still there.”115

Moreover, statistical research suggests thatforeign peacekeepers and generous economicaid tend to work in post–civil war environ-ments only in narrow cases when (1) the pre-vious government was a democracy, (2) theunderlying peace agreement has provisionsfor the territorial autonomy of threatenedgroups, and (3) the conflict was low intensi-ty.116 Given the parameters of most conflictstoday, those research findings do not augurwell for the advocates of empire.

As an overarching theme, today’s advo-cates of empire repeatedly emphasize that welive in a “unipolar world” with the UnitedStates at the center. That claim not onlyappeals to a sense of American exceptional-ism; also it implies that Washington can doas it pleases. But as Harvard’s SamuelHuntington points out, true unipolaritywould mean the United States could effec-tively resolve important international issues,“and no combination of other states wouldhave the power to prevent it.” That is certain-ly not the case in the world today. An impov-erished and enfeebled Russia or a moderniz-ing China could quickly put an end to a greatnumber of U.S. policies, especially ill-con-ceived ones undertaken in their backyards.Thus, clarifies Huntington, contemporaryinternational politics is really a hybrid—“auni-multipolar system with one superpowerand several major powers.”117 Behaving as ifthat were not the case—that is, behaving as ifthe world were truly unipolar—is bound to

17

The United Statesmay find that itsalliances andcommitments sapits strength fordealing with anyrising power.

lead to dangerous confrontations because itmisapprehends reality and engenders falseoptimism, an error that has historically beena leading cause of war.118

Today’s advocates of empire also tend tocharacterize potential opponents as papertigers, and thus downplay the risks associatedwith the strategy of empire. Those advocatesclaim that other countries are too irresolute orweak to really resist American power. They labelas superficial the “strategic triangle” of Russia,China, and India. The “strategic partnership” ofMoscow and Beijing is inflated rhetoric, accord-ing to them. And they do not brand theEuropean Union as a serious body. “I’m stillwaiting for the EU, China, India, Russia, orJapan to get together in some kind of anti-American alliance,” scoffs Boot.119

A variant of this argument is that if othercountries were really concerned aboutAmerica’s capability to do harm in the future,we would see the gap between U.S. and othernations’ defense expenditures closing.Because the gap is not closing and is in factgrowing, we can safely conclude that any anx-iety about U.S. power is minimal; that is,America is not a threat, so why counter it?But there is an alternative reading: the factthat the gap is not closing shows, not thatother countries are unworried aboutAmerican activism, but that becoming aprospective empire is very expensive.

Balancing behavior, moreover, is morenuanced than Boot and other advocates ofempire care to admit.120 A full-blown, formalalliance aimed at maximalist objectives like“toppling” or “making a serious run” at anempire is what might be called “offensive bal-ancing,” and it tends to be a final step of bal-ancing behavior, not the first. Offensive balanc-ing also makes no military sense in the presentcase, given America’s strategic immunity, pro-tected as it is by two great oceans. As Metternichonce wrote to Castlereagh, “The strongest lawsgoverning states are those of geography.”121

In contrast, “defensive balancing” is a hedgingactivity. It is informal and minimalist, and it isaimed at keeping options open. It also empha-sizes defensive capabilities designed to deny

opponents access to the defender’s geostrategicneighborhood, rather than hugely expensive—and probably futile—capabilities aimed at thepossible invasion of the American mainland.That is the real backdrop today’s advocates ofempire disregard as they try to sell policymakerson their strategy to revise the world.

Finally, those who argue that Americashould emulate the 19th-century BritishEmpire ignore the fact that today’s world bearslittle resemblance to the one over which Britainonce presided. Two differences should be obvi-ous: First, the world is far more interconnectedtoday, which makes the consequences of sancti-monious, arrogant, or clumsy internationalbehavior riskier politically, diplomatically, andeconomically. Second, the potential costs asso-ciated with making enemies today are fargreater than they were for empires past. Indeed,the British and Romans were the targets ofassassinations, arson, and other forms of anti-imperial backlash, but that activity was typical-ly small-scale and took place far away from themother country. In contrast, forms of backlashagainst the U.S. role as globocop today could belarge-scale and long-range and may be directedat America’s homeland—as shown by theattacks on September 11, which were launchedby Osama bin Laden in retaliation for the U.S.military presence in Saudi Arabia, U.S. supportfor Israel, U.S.-led economic sanctions againstIraq, and U.S. backing of corrupt regimes in theMiddle East. In the future, terrorists retaliatingfor U.S. actions overseas could use more power-ful weapons against the U.S. homeland—forexample, nuclear, biological, and chemicalweapons. Thus, the resentment of U.S. neoim-perialism could provoke catastrophic terrorismagainst the United States itself—thereby dra-matically reducing U.S. security.

Conclusion

According to Columbia University politi-cal scientist Jack Snyder, strategic overexten-sion often occurs when, domestically, eliteconstituencies are willing to back other eliteconstituencies’ imperial projects if their own

18

The resentmentof U.S. neoimpe-

rialism could pro-voke catastrophicterrorism againstthe United States

itself—therebydramatically

reducing U.S.security.

imperial projects are supported in return.The result is policy “logrolling” that takes ona momentum of its own.122

Today, there is a worrisome consensusemerging among humanitarian hawks on theleft and neoconservatives on the right thatAmerica’s international role should be toenforce, by military means if necessary, civilitythroughout the world. Indicative of this trendis a post–September 11 column by RonaldAsmus, a former deputy assistant secretary ofstate during the Clinton administration, andRobert Kagan, a contributing editor to theneoconservative Weekly Standard. Asmus andKagan reject both the realist balance-of-powerviews associated with Henry Kissinger andBrent Scowcroft and the deference to “inter-national community” associated with WarrenChristopher and Madeleine Albright. “Nowwe need to chart a more ambitious agenda,”they write. “Neither timid multilateralism nornarrow realism is good enough. . . . [We] needto build a new bipartisan internationalist con-sensus, both to wage the present struggle andto build a safer future. [We] have a duty to our-selves and to the world to use our power tospread democratic principles and deter anddefeat the opponents of our civilization.”123

The Bush administration has used similarrhetoric:

Today, the United States enjoys aposition of unparalleled militarystrength and great economic andpolitical influence. In keeping withour heritage and principles, we do notuse our strength to press for unilater-al advantage. We seek instead to cre-ate a balance of power that favorshuman freedom: conditions in whichall nations and all societies can choosefor themselves the rewards and chal-lenges of political and economic liber-ty. . . . We will extend the peace byencouraging free and open societieson every continent.124

What is remarkable is that conservativeadvocates of empire do not appreciate the

pro-government premise of their policy rec-ommendations; that is to say, their expansiveview of the role and effectiveness of the statein promulgating government programs over-seas clashes with their dim view of largedomestic projects. Indeed, as the conservativescholars Kim Holmes and John Hillenremark, “It is somewhat confusing to discov-er that the government that runs too muchof America runs too little of the world.”125

Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria refers to the dis-connect as the “conservative confusion,” andpoints out that

the defining element of conservatismis realism—realism about the limits ofstate power, the nature of humanbeings and societies, the complexity ofinternational life. Yet many conserva-tives who believe that the state can donothing right at home think that it cando nothing wrong abroad. (If things gobadly, why, more money, bigger bombsand ground troops will straighten itout.) Many who are scornful of socialengineering at home seem sure it willwork beyond our borders. They seemconvinced that good intentions and aburst of state power can transform theworld. How conservative is that?126

But pro-empire conservatives are morethan confused: they are contradictory. Theysay that the original intent of the U.S.Constitution should be respected but are thefirst to insist that notions like a congression-al declaration of war are antiquated and haveno place in the modern world.127 They assailaffirmative action programs and quotas athome but are conspicuously silent whenU.S.-backed nation builders mandate ethnic-and gender-based set asides in the Balkansand Central Asia.128 They say that politicalspeech is what the Founders had foremost inmind when they drafted the First Amendmentbut are mum when U.S.-backed officials censornewspapers and impose preelection “black-outs” on television stations in Bosnia andKosovo.129 And they praise the virtues of

19

Conservativeadvocates ofempire do notappreciate thepro-governmentpremise of theirpolicy recom-mendations.

American-style democracy but say nothingwhen the former head of the U.S.-led nation-building mission in Bosnia freely admits:“With powers that would have made a 19th-century viceroy envious, I did not hesitate to usemy authority to impose legislation and dismiss[democratically elected] domestic officials.”130

Besides, a decision to chart an imperialcourse is inconsistent with the ideals ofAmerica’s founding generation. Recall thatthe American colonists rebelled againstempire and its efforts to impose on themtaxes to sponsor global wars and imperialpolicing.131 History, moreover, shows thatwars have been the greatest source of govern-ment growth and bureaucratizing, and havehad a tendency to erode the very economicfreedoms, civil liberties, and institutions oflimited government that the Founders estab-lished.132 Andrew Bacevich, a retired Armycolonel and professor of international rela-tions at Boston University, thinks Americanempire may be inevitable but readily con-cedes, “I . . . suspect that we’ll end up payinga higher cost, morally and materially, than wecurrently can imagine.”

“I would prefer a non-imperial America,”Bacevich says. “Shorn of global responsibili-ties, a global military, and our preposterousexpectations of remaking the world in ourimage, we would, I think, have a much betterchance of keeping faith with the intentionsand hopes of the Founders.”133 Military his-torian Richard Kohn notes that mostAmericans would wisely reject an imperialrole if it were put to them openly: “They rec-ognize that it would cost us our soul.”134

The strategy of empire also breaks with thefounding generation’s sound approach to for-eign policy, which was aimed not at national iso-lation, as is widely misperceived, but at strategicindependence. Indeed, Washington and Jeffer-son’s warnings about “permanent” and “entan-gling” alliances, respectively, were not a call forretreat.135 They were a call for the United States tokeep a free hand. The strategy of empire, in con-trast, is aimed at tying the U.S. hand down tonearly every corner of the globe. A nation that hastoo much political connection to others, cau-

tioned Washington, “is in some degree a slave.”136

What’s most troubling about the strategyof empire, however, is that its effect will prob-ably be the opposite of what its proponentsclaim, ultimately putting other nations onthe defensive and provoking counterproduc-tive responses, including the proliferationand possible first use of WMD.

The real question facing policymakerstoday is not whether relative U.S. power willeventually wane but whether the strategy ofempire will accelerate that process. In the late1800s at the height of British power, whocould have predicted that, 60 years later,imperial overextension and costly involve-ment in two large wars would lead to thedemise of a once great superpower? A centu-ry later, the Soviet Union’s overextension andexcessive military spending were too muchfor its creaky socialist economy and led to itscollapse. Jack Snyder and other academicswho study imperial overextension would castdoubt on the thesis—advocated by propo-nents of empire—that the United States canadopt the strategy of empire and not ulti-mately have its power diminished.

Walter Russell Mead, in his history of U.S.foreign policy, says that there has been nodebate on the value of U.S. hegemony to thecountry. Perhaps the advocates of empire—including the Bush administration—aredoing policy discourse a favor by being bla-tant about their ambitions. Mead also asks,“What is the point of our ‘empire’—to makeus rich, or to make us safe, or to build a bet-ter world?”137

That key question is never addressed bythe foreign policy establishment, whichderives so much prestige and power from theU.S. role as an interventionist superpower.This paper has argued that the United Stateswill not get rich by adopting an imperial pol-icy. Quite the contrary: the massive amountof U.S. taxpayer dollars spent unnecessarilyon excessive military power to police theworld and to conduct nation-building mis-sions certainly does not pay for itself in anybenefits to the United States from increasedoverseas trade or investment because of fewer

20

History showsthat wars have

been the greatestsource of govern-ment growth and

have had a ten-dency to erode

the very economicfreedoms, civil

liberties, andinstitutions of

limited govern-ment that the

Founders established.

disruptive wars or from increased economicand commercial concessions from protectednations. And as noted earlier, even Max Bootadmits that building a better world throughnation building is very difficult.138

Having an empire does not make us safer.The animosity toward the United States ofgroups and nations in far-flung places—demonstrated graphically by the attacks ofSeptember 11—indicates that imperial over-stretch has quite the opposite effect. The firstgoal of any government should be to ensurethe safety and well-being of the people.Adopting a strategy of empire is actuallycounterproductive to those ends.

Notes1. Committed advocates of empire existed beforeSeptember 11, too. See Thomas E. Ricks, “Empireor Not? A Quiet Debate over U.S. Role,”Washington Post, August 21, 2001, p. A1; and ErnestW. Lefever, America’s Imperial Burden: Is the PastPrologue? (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1999).

2. Max Boot, “The Case for American Empire,”Weekly Standard, October 15, 2001, p. 27.Emphasis in original. Also see Max Boot, TheSavage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise ofAmerican Power (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

3. Ibid., pp. 28–29.

4. Sebastian Mallaby, “The Reluctant Imperialist:Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for AmericanEmpire,” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 2 (March–April 2002): 6.

5. Ibid., pp. 2–3.

6. Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why LeadershipDemands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Random House,2002), p. 153.

7. Ibid., p. 152.

8. Preston Jones, “The World According to RobertKaplan,” Ottawa Citizen, March 3, 2002, p. C13.

9. Max Boot, “The Savage Wars of Peace: SmallWars and the Rise of American Power,” dialoguewith James Gibney, Slate, May 8, 2002, www.slate.msn.com/?id=2065505.

10. White House, “The National Security Strategy ofthe United States of America,” September 2002, p. v.Cited hereafter as “National Security Strategy.”

11. Ibid., pp. v, 2, 6, 21–22, 29, 30, 31.

12. Nor are surveys and critiques of it. See, for exam-ple, Lance E. Davis and Robert Huttenback,Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The PoliticalEconomy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent Assimilation:American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (NewHaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982); Robert L.Beisner, Twelve against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists,1898–1900 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); RobertHuttenback, The British Imperial Experience (Westport,Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1966); E. M.Winslow, The Pattern of Imperialism (1948;Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);Joseph A. Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes(1919; New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers,1974); John Hobson, Imperialism, A Study (1902; AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965); andRichard Cobden, The Works of Richard Cobden, ed.Peter J. Cain (London: Routledge, 1996).

13. Quoted in Robert Sibley, “The Empire StrikesBack,” Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 2002, p. A14.

14. Quoted in ibid.

15. Quoted in Eileen P. Sullivan, “Liberalism andImperialism: J. S. Mill’s Defense of the BritishEmpire,” Journal of the History of Ideas 44, no. 4(October–December 1983): 612. Also see Kenneth E.Miller, “John Stuart Mill’s Theory of InternationalRelations,” Journal of the History of Ideas 22, no. 4(October–December 1961); John Stuart Mill, “A FewWords on Non-Intervention,” in John Stuart Mill:Essays on Politics and Culture, ed. GertrudeHimmelfarb (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books,1963), pp. 368–84; and John Stuart Mill, “OnColonies and Colonization, 1848,” in Principles ofPolitical Economy, ed. J. Laurence Laughlin (NewYork: D. Appleton, 1891), pp. 540–60.

16. Quoted in E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis,1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study ofInternational Relations (New York: St. Martin’s,1939), p. 76.

17. Kaplan, Warrior Politics, pp. 147, 154.

18. Boot, “The Case for American Empire,” p. 30.

19. “National Security Strategy,” p. iv.

20. Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: AmericanForeign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York:Century Foundation, 2001), pp. 132–73.

21. Quoted in David Rieff, “A New Age of LiberalImperialism?” World Policy Journal 14, no. 2(Summer 1999): 9.

21

22. See ibid.; Richard Caplan, A New Trusteeship? TheInternational Administration of War-Torn Territories(Oxford: Oxford University Press/InternationalInstitute for Strategic Studies, 2002); StanleyHoffmann, “What Should American Foreign PolicyBe?” Dissent (Fall 1994); Peter Lyon, “The Rise and Falland Possible Revival of International Trusteeship,”Journal of Commonwealth and Commonwealth Politics 31,no. 4 (March 1993); and Gerald B. Helman and StevenR. Ratner, “Saving Failed States,” Foreign Policy no. 89(Winter 1992–93): 3–20.

23. Quoted in Sibley.

24. Robert Cooper, “Why We Still Need Empires,”Guardian (London), April 7, 2002, p. 27.

25. Quoted in Ronald Steel, Temptations of aSuperpower (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1995), p. 102.

26. Boot, “The Case for American Empire,” p. 29.

27. Mallaby, p. 7.

28. Kaplan, Warrior Politics, pp. 144–45. Emphasisin original.

29. Ibid., p. 145.

30. One scholar has defined the theory in the follow-ing way: “The theory, to state it baldly, claims that thepresence of a single, strongly dominant actor in inter-national politics leads to collectively desirable out-comes for all states in the international system.Conversely, the absence of a hegemon is associatedwith disorder in the world system and undesirableoutcomes for individual states.” Duncan Snidal, “TheLimits of Hegemonic Stability Theory,” InternationalOrgani-zation 39, no. 4 (Autumn 1985): 579. Emphasisin original. For more on the theory, see IsabelleGrunberg, “Exploring the ‘Myth’ of HegemonicStability,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (Winter1990): 431–78; Robert Gilpin, War and Change in WorldPolitics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);and A. F. K. Organski, World Politics, 2d ed. (New York:Knopf, 1968), chap. 4.

31. “National Security Strategy,” p. 30.

32. Thomas Donnelly, “Rebuilding America’sDefenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for aNew Century,” Project for the New AmericanCentury, September 2000, pp. i–ii. PaulWolfowitz, Dov Zakheim, Stephen Cambone, andI. Lewis Libby all contributed to this report andare all now high-level national security officials inthe present administration.

33. This view was clearly expressed in the firstBush administration’s Defense Planning

Guidance Plan, which was leaked to the press in1992. The plan called for the United States to“establish and protect a new order that holds thepromise of convincing potential competitors thatthey need not aspire to a greater role or pursue amore aggressive posture to protect their legiti-mate interests. . . . In non-defense areas, we mustaccount sufficiently for the interests of theadvanced industrial nations to discourage themfrom challenging our leadership or seeking tooverturn the established political and economicorder. . . . We will retain the pre-eminent responsi-bility for addressing selectively those wrongswhich threaten not only our interests, but thoseof our allies and friends, or which could seriouslyunsettle international relations.” Quoted in“Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent theEmergence of a New Rival,’” New York Times,March 8, 1992, p. 14.

34. See Mackubin Thomas Owens, “Oh What a . . .Small War,” National Review, May 20, 2002, pp. 47–49.

35. Mallaby, p. 6.

36. Kaplan, Warrior Politics, p. 145.

37. Mallaby, p. 6.

38. Quoted in Owens, p. 48.

39. The realist school believes that nations actprimarily out of their self-interest (as opposed toacting for the ideological reasons) and that thebalance of power governs relations amongnations. That is, members of this school believethat if one nation’s power becomes excessive,other nations will band together to offset it.

40. For example, see Richard Ned Lebow, “The LongPeace, the End of the Cold War and the Failure ofRealism,” International Organization 42, no. 2 (Spring1994): 249–77; Paul Schroeder, “Historical Realityvs. Neorealist Theory,” International Security 19, no. 1(Summer 1994): 108–48; and Jeffrey W. Legro andAndrew Moravcsik, “Is Anybody Still a Realist?”International Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 5–55. Onthe realist school of international relations, see Carr;Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Strugglefor Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1948);Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War: ATheoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1959); Raymond Aron, International Relations:A Theory of Peace and War, trans. Richard Howard andAnnette Baker Fox (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday,1973); and Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of InternationalPolitics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

41. See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of GreatPower Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), chap.10; Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the

22

Cold War,” International Security 25, no. 1 (Summer2000): 5–41; Robert Jervis, “International Primacy: Isthe Game Worth the Candle?” International Security17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 52–67; and John J.Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability inEurope after the Cold War,” International Security 15,no. 1 (Summer 1990): 5–56.

42. Joshua Muravchik, “At Last, Pax Americana,”New York Times, January 24, 1991, p. A23.

43. Charles Krauthammer, “What’s Wrong withthe ‘Pentagon Paper’?” Washington Post, March 13,1992, p. A25.

44. Boot, ”The Savage Wars of Peace.”

45. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 127,quoted in Christopher Layne, “The UnipolarIllusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,”International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 15.

46. Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion,” p. 34.

47. See Gilpin, pp. 94–95.

48. Annual growth of the U.S. gross domesticproduct for 1991–2001 was as follows: 1991, 3.2%;1992, 5.6%; 1993, 5.1%; 1994, 6.2%; 1995, 4.9%;1996, 5.6%; 1997 6.5%; 1998, 5.6%; 1999, 5.5%;2000, 6.5%; and 2001, 3.4%.

49. See John Whiteclay Chambers II, ed., The OxfordCompanion to American Military History (New York:Oxford University Press, 1999), www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/vietnam/domestic.htm (accessed July 3,2002); and Timothy B. Clarke, “Everybody WantsMore for Defense—But Is There Room in theBudget?” National Journal, May 17, 1980.

50. John Markoff, “Japanese Computer Is World’sFastest, As U.S. Falls Back,” New York Times, April20, 2002, p. A1, cited in Immanuel Wallerstein,“The Eagle Has Crash Landed,” Foreign Policy,July–August 2002, p. 67.

51. Kenneth N. Waltz, “America as a Model for theWorld? A Foreign Policy Perspective,” in The Use ofForce, 4th ed., ed. Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz(New York: University Press of America, 1993).

52. Boot, “The Savage Wars of Peace.”

53. Joseph M. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits ofCooperation: A Realist Critique of the NewestLiberal Internationalism,” International Organiza-tion42, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 500. Emphasis in original.

54. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Securi-ty Dilemma,” World Politics 30, no. 2 (January1978): 105.

55. See Fred Halliday and Justin Rosenberg, “RealismRevisited: Interview with Ken Waltz,” Review ofInternational Studies 24, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 377.

56. See, for example, Josef Joffe, “Who’s Afraid ofMr. Big?” National Interest 64 (Summer 2001):43–52.

57. See, for example, Peter Ford, “Europe’s View: ASelf-Centered U.S.,” Christian Science Monitor, April 5,2001, p. 6; Martin Walker, “What Europeans Thinkof America,” World Policy Journal 17, no. 2 (Summer2000); Viola Herms Drath, “The View from Europe;Old Allies Are Ready to Go Their Own Way,” Wash-ington Times, December 8, 2000, p. A21; “CriticismSwells over U.S. Opposition of World War CrimesCourt,” Agence France Presse, July 2, 2002; andAndrew Grice, “Visit by British Minister to ArafatDeepens Rift with U.S.,” Independent (London), July 3,2002, www.altavista.com/sites/search/web?q=%2BAustralian%2BBroadcast%2BCorporation+%2Bnews&avkw=tgz&kl=XX&stq=10 (accessedJuly 3, 2002) and Peter Finn, “Germany Balks atHelping U.S. in Moussaoui Trial,” Chicago Tribune,June 11, 2002, p. 3.

58. See, for example, Daniel Griswold, “The ComingTrans-Atlantic Trade Tussle,” Wall Street JournalEurope, December 13, 2000; Aaron Lukas, “Yes, WeSell No Bananas,” Cato Institute Daily Commentary,November 23, 1998, www.cato.org/dailys/11-23-98.html (accessed July 3, 2002); Veronique de Rugy,“Repel the Cartel,” National Review Online, June 7,2002, www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/comment-derugy060702.asp (accessed July 3, 2002);and Aaron Lukas, “Safe Harbor or Stormy Waters?Living with the EU Data Protection Directive,”Cato Institute Trade Policy Analysis no. 16,October 30, 2001.

59. See William Pfaff, “New Challenges to U.S. Corp-orate Abuse,” International Herald Tribune, June 8,2002, p. 6; Jean Eaglesham and Francisco Guerrers,“Brussels ‘Tougher Than U.S. on Merger Control,’”Financial Times, January 9, 2002, p. 9; and MartinSikora, “Why All Buyers Should Care about theGE/Honeywell Misfire,” Mergers and AcquisitionsJournal, September 1, 2001.

60. Quoted in Jervis, “International Primacy,” p. 56.

61. David C. Hendrikson and Robert W. Tucker,The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order andAmerica’s Purpose (New York: Council on ForeignRelations, 1992), p. 203.

62. Robert H. Johnson, Improbable Dangers: U.S.Conceptions of Threat in the Cold War and After(New York: St. Martin’s, 1994), p. 206. Cited inLayne, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing,”p. 101.

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63. See, for example, Robert E. Hunter, “Sittingon the Sidelines Isn’t Good Enough,” Los AngelesTimes, March 11, 2002, p. 11; Robert M. Hathawayand Dennis Kux, ‘With India and Pakistan, StepUp Preventive Diplomacy,” Christian ScienceMonitor, December 31, 2001, p. 21; and H. D. S.Greenway, “Focus Must Be on Central Asia’sStability,” Boston Globe, October 15, 2001, p. A15.

64. This point is made by Kim R. Holmes andJohn Hillen in their response to William Kristoland Robert Kagan’s call for an American “benevo-lent global hegemony.” Kim R. Holmes and JohnHillen, “Misreading Reagan’s Legacy: A TrulyConservative Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 75,no. 5 (September–October 1996): 162–67.

65. Quoted in Christopher Layne and BenjaminSchwarz, “American Hegemon—Without anEnemy,” Foreign Policy no. 92 (Fall 1993): 15.

66. Quoted in ibid., pp. 13–14.

67. Quoted in ibid., p. 14.

68. Quoted in Kaplan, Warrior Politics, p. 126.

69. See Christopher Layne, “From Preponderanceto Offshore Balancing,” International Security 22,no. 1 (Summer 1997): 98.

70. Paul Bracken, “America’s Maginot Line,” AtlanticMonthly, December 1998, www.theatlantic.com/issues/98dec/maginot.htm.

71. See Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press, and HarveyM. Sapolsky, “Come Home, America: The Strategy ofRestraint in the Face of Temptation,” InternationalSecurity 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 16.

72. Steel, p. 109.

73. See U.S. Department of State, Patterns of GlobalTerrorism, 2001, Appendix I, www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgrpt/2001/html.

74. Recall that Putin’s latest state of Russiaspeech was almost exclusively about domesticissues and internal reforms. Limiting public criti-cism of Washington in the wake of September 11has also given Russia a free pass from U.S. criticism onChechnya, which is important to Moscowbecause further national disintegration could fol-low if the Chechen rebels are allowed to succeed.

75. See, for example, John Pomfret, “China to Buy8 More Russian Submarines; $1.6 Billion DealWould Aid a Blockade of Taiwan, Challenge U.S.Power in Region,” Washington Post, June 25, 2002,p. A15; Mark Matthews, “U.S. Ties to Russia MayFray over Iran: Bush Expected to Urge Putin to

Stop Exports of Weapons Technology,” BaltimoreSun, May 23, 2002, p. 1A; Marat Kenzhetayev andLyuba Pronina, “Rocketing Up the Arms SalesCharts,” Moscow Times, April 15, 2002; and“Russia to Speed Up Delivery of MilitaryHardware,” Times of India, February 9, 2002.

76. Those wars were, in chronological order:Indian Wars (1800–1802), Denmark (1801),Egypt Campaign (1801), Kandian War (1803),West Indies Campaigns (1803–1805), 2ndMahratta War (1803–1806), Napoleonic Wars(1803–1815), Cape of Good Hope (1806), SouthAmerican War (1806–1807), Italy and Mediter-ranean (1806–1812), Chumar (1807), Denmark(1807), Egypt (1807) Peninsular War (1808–1814),Arabia (1809), Travancore (1809), Walcheren(1809), West Indies Campaign (1809–1815),French Indian Ocean (1810), Dutch East Indies(1810–1811), 4th Kaffir War (1811–1812), War of1812 (1812–1815), Germany (1813), NetherlandsCampaigns (1813–1814), Nepal Campaign(1814–1816), Ceylon Campaign (1814–1818), 3rdMahratta War (1817–1819), 5th Kaffir War(1819), Arabia (1819–1821), Ashanti Campaign(1824), Assam (1824–1825), 1st Burma War(1824–1826), Portuguese Expedition (1827–1828),Jat War (1825–1826), Coorg Campaign (1834),6th Kaffir War (1834–1835), 1st Carlist War(1836–1838), Canadian Rebellion (1837–1838),Aroostook War (1839), Capture of Aden (1839),1st Afghan War (1839–1842), 1st China War(1839–1842), Syrian Expedition (1840–1841),Occupation of Durban (1842), Con-quest ofScinde (1843), Gwalior Campaign (1843), Argentina-Uruguay War (1843–1852), 1st Maori War (1845–1847), Orange Free State Expeditions (1845 and1848), 7th Kaffir War (1846–1847), 1st Sikh War(1845–1846), 2nd Sikh War (1848–1849), 8th KaffirWar (1850–1853), North West Frontier (1849–1878),2nd Burma War (1852–1853), Crimean War(1853–1856), Persian War (1856–1857), IndianMutiny (1857–1858), 2nd China War (1857–1862),2nd Maori War (1860– 1861), Sikkim Expedition(1861), Trent Affair (1861–1862), JapaneseIntervention (1863–1864), 3rd Maori War (1863–1866),North East Frontier (1864–1866), South ArabianExpedition (1865–1866), Bhutan Campaign(1865–1866), Fenian Raids (1866), Abyssinian War(1867–1868), Fenian Raids (1870), South Africa(1873), Ashanti War (1873–1874), PerakCampaign (1875–1876), 9th Kaffir War (1877–1879), 2nd Afghan War (1878–1880), Zulu War(1879), Basuto Wars (1880–1881), 1st Anglo-BoerWar (1880–1881), Egypt Intervention (1882–1884), North West Canada (1885), 1st Sudan War(1885–1886), 3rd Burma War (1885–1887), WestAfrica (1887), North East Frontier (1888–1897),North West Frontier (1888–1898), West Africa(1892–1894), Rhodesia (1896), Bechuanaland(1896–1897), 2nd Sudan War (1896–1898), East

24

Africa (1896–1899), West Africa (1898–1899), 2ndAnglo-Boer War (1899–1902), Ashanti War(1900), 3rd China War (1900), Somaliland(1901–1904), Tibet (1904), Conquest of Sokoto(1903), and Zulu Rebellion (1906). See“Chronological Index of the Wars, Campaigns,and Operations of Britain, the Empire, andCommonwealth,” www.regiments.org/milhist/wars/wars.htm (accessed July 6, 2002).

77. Quoted in Owens, p. 48.

78. Benjamin C. Schwarz, “The Arcana of Empire,”Salmagundi 101–102 (Winter–Spring 1994): 203.

79. For more information on the magnitude ofU.S. defense spending compared with that ofother nations, see Ivan Eland, Putting “Defense”Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Securityin the Post–Cold War World (Westport, Conn.:Praeger, 2001), pp. 13–15.

80. Data from Fareed Zakaria, “Our Way: TheTrouble with Being the Only Superpower,” NewYorker, October 14 and 21, 2002, pp. 74–75.

81. See “Fiscal Year 2003 Budget: Highlights of theFY’03 Budget Request,” Center for Defense Informa-tion, February 4, 2002, www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03Highlights-pr.cfm (accessed July 3, 2002).

82. “National Security Strategy,” pp. 21–22.

83. See U.S. General Accounting Office, BalkansSecurity: Current and Projected Factors AffectingRegional Stability, April 2000, p. 86.

84. Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press, “The Effectsof Wars on Neutral Countries: Why It Doesn’t Payto Preserve the Peace,” Security Studies 10, no. 4(Summer 2001): 2–4.

85. Earl Ravenal, Designing Defense for a New WorldOrder: The Military Budget in 1992 and Beyond(Washington: Cato Institute, 1991), pp. 14–16.

86. Max Boot, “George W. Bush: The ‘W’ Standsfor Woodrow,” Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2002.

87. Carr, p. 53.

88. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civil-izations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:Simon & Schuster, 1996).

89. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,pp. 44 and 84. Emphasis added. Although somemay claim that the British Empire refutes this asser-tion, Mearsheimer points out that the BritishEmpire never seriously threatened to take over oroccupy another great power. It instead accumulated

weak or undefended powers, as did other great pow-ers. Understanding the limits of power projectionover water, German chancellor Otto von Bismarckonce said of the prospect that the British armymight invade, “[I’d] call out the local police and haveit arrested.” Quoted in ibid., p. 119.

90. Frank M. Russell, Theories of InternationalRelations (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,1936), p. 79.

91. “National Security Strategy,” p. 15.

92. George W. Bush, Remarks at 2002 graduationexercise of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point,New York, June 2, 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html.

93. According to the director of the University ofMaryland’s Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy,William Galston: “A global strategy based on the newBush doctrine means the end of the system of interna-tional institutions, laws, and norms that the UnitedStates has worked for more than half a century tobuild. What is at stake is nothing less than a funda-mental shift in America’s place in the world. Ratherthan continuing to serve as first among equals in thepostwar international system, the United States wouldact as a law unto itself, creating new rules of interna-tional engagement without agreement by othernations.” William A. Galston, “Why a First Strike WillSurely Backfire,” Washington Post, June 16, 2002, p. B1.

94. Quoted in Richard Wolffe, “The BushDoctrine,” Financial Times, June 20, 2002, p. 12.

95. Quoted in Storer H. Rowley, “Critics Say BushDoctrine Might Provoke 1st Strike,” ChicagoTribune, June 24, 2002, www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0206240195jun24.story (accessed June 25, 2002).

96. “National Security Strategy,” p. 6.

97. For more detailed discussions of the conse-quences of offensive strategies, see Stephen VanEvera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,”International Security 22, no. 4 (Fall 1998); RobertJervis, “Cooperation under Security Dilemma,” inThe Use of Force, 3d ed., ed. Robert J. Art andKenneth N. Waltz (Lanham, Md.: University Pressof America, 1988); Jack Snyder, The Ideology of theOffensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of1914 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984);and George Quester, Offense and Defense in theInternational System (New York: Wiley, 1977).

98. For these and other potential consequences,see Richard Falk, “The New Bush Doctrine,”Nation, July 15, 2002, pp. 9–11; and Thomas Bray,“Rein in Bush’s Pre-Emptive Attack Idea,” Detroit

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News, June 19, 2002, www.detnews.com/2002/editorial/0206/19/a13-518235.htm.

99. See Boot, “The Case for American Empire,” p.30; and Mallaby, pp. 3–5. Also see Audrey KurthCronin, “Rethinking Sovereignty: AmericanStrategy in the Age of Terrorism,” Survival 44, no.2 (Summer 2002): 134; and Ray Takeyh andNikolas Gvosdev, “Do Terrorist Networks Need aHome?” Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Summer2002): 106.

100. Doug Bandow, “Keep the Troops and the Moneyat Home” in America’s National Interest in a Post–ColdWar World: Issues and Dilemmas, ed. A. Z. Rubinstein(New York: McGraw Hill, 1994), p. 103. For a survey ofthe backlash effects of hegemonic behavior, seeChalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Cost and Consequencesof American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books,2000). For a list of terrorist incidents in retaliation foran interventionist U.S. foreign policy, see Ivan Eland,“Does U.S. Interven-tion Overseas Breed Terrorism?The Historical Record,” Cato Institute Foreign PolicyBriefing no. 50, December 17, 1998.

101. Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “MilitaryWould Be Stressed by a New War, Study Finds,”New York Times, May 24, 2002, p. A8.

102. Recall, for example, that Afghanistan’s presidentHamid Karzai already says that his nation will needforeign troops and aid workers indefinitely; “for aslong as we need . . . to fight terrorism, to fight war-lordism, to fight anarchy . . . until we have our owninstitutions—a national army, a national intelligence,national police and so on.” Quoted in StevenKomarow, “Karzai: Foreign Troops Needed Indefinite-ly,” USA Today, June 26, 2002, www.usatoday.com/advertising/orbitz/orbitz-window.htm.

103. See Brian Bond, British Military Policy betweenthe Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1980); and Miles Kahler, Decolonization inBritain and France (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984). Cited in Snyder, p. 8.

104. P. M. H. Bell, The Origins of the Second WorldWar in Europe, 2d ed. (New York: Longman, 1997),pp. 199–200.

105. Ibid., p. 200.

106. Quoted in Brian Mitchell, “‘Pax Americana’Reconsidered,” Investor’s Business Daily, January 27,1999, p. A1.

107. Kaplan, Warrior Politics, pp. 144, 146, 154.

108. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace, pp. 347–48, 350.

109. In fact, a recent survey of 634 college stu-

dents done by Lutz Research Cos. found that,although 79 percent of college students believethe United States “has the right to overthrowHussein,” 37 percent said they would be likely toevade a draft if one were necessary to succeed inthe overthrow. Amazingly, 58 percent of thosewho said they would evade the draft also sup-ported an invasion of Iraq. In other words, theyfavor fighting as long as someone else has to do it.See George McEvoy, “If Bush Needs a Draft toInvade Iraq, Good Luck,” Palm Beach Post, June 29,2002, www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/saturday/opinion_d3c1bad4c35ea0a81061.html (accessed July 1, 2002).

110. Amos Perlmutter, Making the World Safe forDemocracy: A Century of Wilsonianism and itsTotalitarian Challengers (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univer-sity of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 6.

111. Boot, “The Case for American Empire,” p. 29.

112. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace, p. 345.

113. Robert I. Rotberg makes the same argumentin “Failed States in a World of Terror,” ForeignAffairs 81, no. 4 (July–August 2002): 127–40.

114. Mallaby, p. 5.

115. Steel, pp. 105–6.

116. Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie, andDonald Rothchild, “Stabilizing the Peace afterCivil War: An Investigation of Some Key Vari-ables,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (Winter2001): 183–208.

117. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Super-power,” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 2 (March–April 1999):35–49. Emphasis in original.

118. See Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Powerand the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1999).

119. Boot, “The Savage Wars of Peace.”

120. See especially Stephen G. Brooks and William C.Wohlforth, “American Primacy in Perspective,” ForeignAffairs 81, no. 4 (July–August 2002): 20–33.

121. Quoted in Henry A. Kissinger, WorldRestored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems ofPeace 1812–1822 (London: Victor Gollancz,1977), pp. 309–10. Abraham Lincoln reflected asimilar understanding of the importance ofgeography, especially in the case of the UnitedStates: “Shall we expect some transatlantic mili-tary giant to step the Ocean and crush us at ablow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and

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Africa combined, with all the treasure of theearth (our own excepted) in their military chest;with a Buonaparte for a commander, could notby force take a drink from the Ohio or make atrack on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousandyears.” Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, PromisedLand, Crusader State: The American Encounter withthe World since 1776 (New York: HoughtonMifflin, 1997), p. 52.

122. See Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: DomesticPolitics and International Ambition (Cornell, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1991).

123. Ronald D. Asmus and Robert Kagan, “Commitfor the Long Run,” Washington Post, January 29, 2002,www.ceip.org/files/publications/2002–01-29-kaganpost.asp (accessed June 21, 2002).

124. “National Security Strategy,” p. iv.

125. Holmes and Hillen, p. 162.

126. Fareed Zakaria, “Conservative Confusion onKosovo,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 1999, p. A26.

127. This point is made by Michael Kinsley in“Who Wants This War?” Slate, July 10, 2002,www.slate.msn.com/?id=2067896 (accessed July11, 2002).

128. See, for example, Stefan Racin, “KouchnerSigns Municipal Elections Law,” United PressInternational, July 11, 2000; and Larry Kaplow,“Women to Help Forge Path for Afghanistan,”Atlanta Journal and Constitution, June 10, 2002, p. 7A.

129. See, for example, Richard Mertens, “UNCensorship: Kosovo Press Names, Vigilantes Act,”Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 2000; “Bosnia:IMC Says Five Broadcasters Violated ElectionRules,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 27,2000; Garentina Kraja, “Kosovo Board Planned toOversee Media,” Washington Times, October 18,1999, p. A15; “Kosovo’s Incipient Media Ministry,”editorial, New York Times, August 30, 1999, p. A22;“KFOR Shuts Down Albanian Newspaper, ArrestsPublisher,” Kosovapress, August 9, 1999; AidaCerkez-Robinson, “Bosnian Serb TV StationBanned,” Associated Press, April 15, 1999; “MediaMonitoring Commission Shuts Down Kanal S

TV,” Beta News Service, April 14, 1999; “Analysis:Bosnia’s Independent Media Commission Get toWork,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, August 6,1998; and Philip Shenon, “Allies Creating Press-Control Agency in Bosnia,” New York Times, April24, 1998, p. A8.

130. Wolfgang Petritch, “In Bosnia, An ‘EntryStrategy,’” Washington Post, July 2, 2002, p. A15.This, of course, belies Kimberly Kagan’s claim thatAmerica “treats no nations as protectorates” anddoes not “send governors” or “impose” laws onsmall states. See Kimberly Kagan, “Hegemony, NotEmpire,” Weekly Standard, May 6, 2002, pp. 16–17.

131. Indeed, Thomas Paine believed “Britain’simperial ambitions were precisely what draggedthe colonists in to unwanted wars and spoiledtheir trade.” See McDougall, p. 19.

132. See Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: CriticalEpisodes in the Growth of American Government (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1987); Charles Tilly, Coercion,Capital,and European States, AD 990–1992 (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1992); Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of theState: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (NewYork: Free Press, 1994); Martin Van Creveld, The Riseand Decline of the State (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999); Randolph Bourne, War and theIntellectuals: Collected Essays, 1915–1919, ed. Carl Resek(Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1999); and John V.Denson, ed., Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of theExecutive State and the Decline of Freedom (Auburn, Ala.:Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001).

133. Quoted in Ricks, p. A1.

134. Quoted in ibid.

135. See President George Washington’s FarewellAddress, September 17, 1796, www.customcpu.com/personal/pir/documnts.htm (accessed July 5,2002); and President Thomas Jefferson’s FirstInaugural Address, March 4, 1801, www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/ inaug/jefinau1.htm.

136. Washington.

137. Mead, p. 324.

138. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace, pp. 345, 346.

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